Жизненная история с использованием фраз:sholder to cry on, hair-rasing, turn you nose up at something, mouth-watering, up your neck in it, win hands

Mirrow, mirrow on the wall...

In the beginning, I put it down to a
simple case of exam nerves. My daughter Sarah had just turned sixteen
and was studying hard for her GCSEs*. I knew she'd do well, as she was
top of the class in all her subjects at school and had always been a
high achiever. But as the time for the exams drew nearer, her behaviour
started to change - drastically.

Sarah became sullen and
withdrawn. She wasn't the lively teenager I knew. But the most worrying
thing of all was that she was hardly eating anything. She refused to eat
with the rest of the family and was having only light snacks in her
room. At the time I didn't want to make a big deal of it, as I thought
I'd just make her more anxious about her exams. I was convinced that
once she'd taken the exams, she would soon settle down and everything
would get back to normal.

But it didn't. In fact, it got worse.
By the middle of the summer, Sarah had become very skinny and pale. She
also had wild mood swings, bursting into tears or becoming enraged by
the slightest thing. I should say at this point that my initial
reactions to this situation weren't very helpful. We had huge fights
about her being too thin and I tried to persuade her to eat more, but
she just turned her nose up at everything I offered her. When nothing I
said or did seemed to make any difference, I really felt at a complete
loss about what else I could do or who I could turn to. I was desperate.
After a lot of thought I realised that I would have to try other
tactics. Screaming and tearing my hair out were definitely not improving
the situation.

I started by looking up eating disorders on
various websites, to get as much information as I could, and what I
found out almost scared me to death. Anorexia nervosa is a condition
that typically affects teenage girls. There are a variety of reasons as
to why it can develop, but it is usually said to be because of a
distorted body image and lack of self-esteem. Some young women think
they are too fat, even when they are not, and feel that they are
unattractive or worthless. The media have been accused of playing a role
in the rise of eating disorders in recent years, because of the way
they portray women. Using underweight models in adverts in glossy
magazines and on television may be a factor in encouraging young women
to equate thinness with beauty, glamour and success.

I was
shocked to discover that this disease can seriously damage the heart and
make bones brittle and easy to break. However, the most frightening
aspect of the condition is that in 10% of cases it leads to the death of
the sufferer. The information was terrifying, but it helped me to come
to terms with the fact that someone with a severe eating disorder needs
love and support and urgent medical attention.

It took a lot of
calm and gentle persuasion to get my tearful daughter to agree to go
with me to a doctor who specialises in eating disorders. That was two
years ago and the road to recovery has been long and hard. Sarah spent
two months in hospital to get her weight back to normal and since then
she has been seeing a psychiatrist to help her deal with the underlying
causes of the problem.

It was tough for me, too. I felt very
guilty about her illness - that somehow it was my fault, and I was a bad
mother who had caused her daughter so much anxiety she had started to
starve herself. But we've managed to get through it together. Now Sarah
is looking forward to starting university, the colour has returned to
her cheeks and she is back to being the vibrant young woman she was
before the whole dreadful nightmare started